Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director reveals 9 revelations about FF7 Revelation

I got the answer to a grab bag of those questions when I sat down to interview director Naoki Hamaguchi, shortly after the trailer reveal. While Hamaguchi was careful to avoid spoilers, he was eager to finally talk about some of the finer points of Revelation. He even shared some hyper-specific new details about the game’s characters, settings, and story. Here’s every new detail we learned about Revelation during our sit-down interview.

1

The story wasn’t changed based on fan feedback

Though Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was a hit with fans and critics alike when it launched, its ending has proven to be polarizing in the long term. The remake’s handling of gaming’s most shocking death ruffled a few feathers, thanks to some multiversal shenanigans. As torn as fans were over it, Hamaguchi confirmed that the reaction didn’t stop the team from delivering the conclusion they had scripted out from the start of the remake series.

“The idea of having a trilogy setup was decided from the very early stages of development. Where we would make the cut-off in terms of the story was a bit more vague,” Hamaguchi said. “In terms of how the conclusion of the entire remake trilogy is going to unfold, we had a pretty clear vision from the early phases of the series. We never really had any intention, nor did we adjust the ending based on fan feedback of the two previous titles. We had a very consistent idea.”

2

There’s less content bloat compared to Rebirth

If you found Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth too overwhelming due to its endless supply of minigames and world activities, some relief is on the way. Hamaguchi said that Revelation is cutting back on some of the cruft this time around to keep its open world from becoming exhausting.

“Whenever you have this epic open-world format, a lot of the common fan criticism is that there’s way too much content to cover and it becomes too much,” Hamaguchi said. “We faced that same criticism for Rebirth, particularly with the minigames. With that, we did take some feedback from fans and we are implementing some changes with Revelation. We tried to address and alleviate their concerns, so we are putting some changes in Revelation so that the open-world experience becomes more enjoyable.”

3

Midgar is back, but it’s not the full map

Image: Square Enix

As part of Revelation’s open-world pivot, players will be able to return to some locations from previous games. That includes Midgar, the walled city where the entirety of Final Fantasy 7 Remake takes place. Hamaguchi implied that the Midgar raid from the later hours of the original game will be recreated in the remake. Don’t expect to explore the entire city as it appeared in Remake, though.

“The game experience of visiting and exploring Midgar is going to be a little different than it was in Final Fantasy 7 Remake,” Hamaguchi said. “You won’t be able to visit all of the slums or all the streets you were able to go around in. It’s going to be a bit different in Revelation. I can’t dive into details too much because it would be a spoiler, but when you look at the overall area of Midgar, it is built in a way that retains the iconic element of the Final Fantasy 7 world.”

4

The Gold Saucer is home to a Queen’s Blood hub

Image: Square Enix

Midgar isn’t the only returning location. Players will also be able to revisit the Gold Saucer amusement park, which will include a new snowboarding minigame. While the location won’t factor into the main story much, Hamaguchi confirmed that it will house its own contained side story. This time around, it will also be the premier place to play Queen’s Blood, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s beloved card minigame.

“The Gold Saucer was separated into distinct squares. There was the Wonder Square, an area that had the G-Bike, and the snowboarding minigame that was under construction in Rebirth,” Hamaguchi said. “What’s going to happen in that area in Revelation is that, due to the immense popularity of Queen’s Blood, the square has been completely taken over by Queen’s Blood! All of that area is just going to be Queen’s Blood content.”

5

Cid will show his softer side

Revelation will have to tie up a lot of long-running character arcs, but it will introduce some new ones too. Both Vincent and Cid will join the party as playable characters this time, getting way more screen time than they did in Rebirth. Cid is an especially tricky character to deal with considering that he’s a bit of an abusive jerk in the original game. It sure sounds like he’s going to be a chiller hang in Revelation though, according to Hamaguchi.

“A lot of people might have this impression that he has this strong, difficult personality. I don’t see him that way,” Hamaguchi said. “One thing about how he’s going to be portrayed in Revelation is that, in the original game, players would visit Rocket Town before the Forgotten Capital. If we were to take that same approach, then Rocket Town would have been in Rebirth. Instead, we’re introducing it towards the second half of Revelation. Once you get to Rocket Town, players will get to see a new side of Cid that hasn’t really been shown before. He’s a highly regarded man. Everyone in the town loves him. So we are exploring this character further, and we’ll get to see new sides of him previously not shown.”

6

Don’t expect another exercising minigame

While we already know there will be at least one new minigame in Revelation (snowboarding), at least one classic got the axe this time: You will not have to do squats or pull-ups this time. Pour one out for the muscleheads.

“There was a fitness gym in the Costa del Sol area, and that’s where you go to do the squat minigame in Rebirth,” Hamaguchi said. “The gym members, you might see them referenced in the story elsewhere, but there won’t be a fitness minigame. From the development team’s perspective, since we did create two iterations of the exercising minigame, we feel like that’s probably enough.”

7

Cait Sith’s moogle gets its own fits

One new feature in Revelation is “fits,” a clothing-based job system. We’ve seen two of the game’s four fits so far, and Hamaguchi was tight-lipped on what the other ones are. He did, however, drop a very important detail about the outfits: Cait Sith’s moogle gets dressed up, too.

“Cait Sith has a pretty adorable character design, so all of the fits designed for him look pretty cute, so I like that one,” Hamaguchi said. “It’s not just Cait Sith who wears the fits; the fat moogle will also wear the fits. In that sense, I think it’s going to be a good combo of two cute characters wearing the outfits together.”

8

The platinum trophy will be easier than FF7 Rebirth’s

If you tried to grind for Rebirth’s platinum trophy on PS5, you know what a pain that process was. It involved beating every Chadley simulation, getting a character to level 70, mastering all weapon abilities, and beating every chapter on hard mode. Don’t expect Revelation to be as much of a hassle, even if that breaks Hamaguchi’s heart a little.

“One other negative piece of feedback we got with Rebirth was how hard it was to obtain the platinum trophy,” Hamaguchi said. “We also took that feedback and made some changes to the platinum trophy for Revelation. I don’t want to say that it will necessarily be easier, but the barrier will be a bit lower compared to Rebirth. This does hurt me because whenever I go to fan events, a lot of fans approach me and say ‘Hamaguchi-san, look I got the trophy!’ They’re really proud of it, and I’m really happy to see that! But it feels like with Revelation, we’re probably not going to see that, so that does make me a bit sad.”

9

Square Enix isn’t plotting another remake trilogy any time soon

Image: Square Enix

If you’re hoping that the conclusion to the Final Fantasy 7 saga will open the door for another decade-long remake project, don’t hold your breath. When I asked Hamaguchi to explain the significance behind the title Revelation, he implied that Square Enix isn’t planning to give an RPG like Final Fantasy 9 the full FF7R treatment anytime soon.

“As the word revelation suggests, it means that we’re going to feel things,” Hamaguchi said. “We’re going to uncover things that were left unanswered in previous titles. We spent 10+ years developing this series of three AAA titles. Doing all of that in the course of a decade is probably not going to happen anytime soon again. So all in all, it’s going to be an incredibly big moment for us.”